Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Bella of the Ball

Sometimes, you get the opportunity to try something out, and
it turns into an instant love! That was
how it went with the Bella Party or Play Dress from Snuggle My Baby
Patterns. I was testing the tulle skirt
version the first shot out the gate, and I’ll admit, I was a little worried
about the tulle. We usually aren’t
besties, but oh my, was it amazing on this dress!

Okay so some basics about the pattern first:

- Pattern ranges from 2T to 16 so it covers a very large
size range.

- There are 4 dress options: long tulle, short tulle,
special occasion fabrics, and play dress

- The bodice has options for long sleeve, short sleeve, or
no sleeve. All seams are enclosed so you
won’t have any seams showing when complete (except where you sew the sleeves
on…)

- There are pattern pieces for the bodice and measurement
charts for the skirt pieces and sleeve cuffs so that we can save our paper and
ink.

- The bodice closes with 3 buttons so NO zippers!

- The instructions are very concise and straightforward. There are also tons of pictures for those of
us who do better with the visuals.
Jennifer also made a video on how to attach the tulle in case that parts
sticks us up.

As far as the pattern, I had no problems with following
along. I read it a couple of times
before I got started to make sure I understood what I was
doing. My favorite part of the dress has
to be the bodice. It closes using
buttons and has a sweet little curve in the back that is really unique. My daughter was over the moon over the twirl
factor. When we went to raid my stash
for fabric, she opted for a long tulle skirt and….um, ninja fabric. I wasn’t terribly excited about her choice
until it came together, and it was love!

I also did a second dress in the play dress version that my
little could wear to church (they wear uniforms for school which made me uber
sad that she won’t be wearing this to school, but it’s all good). This time
momma got to pick the fabrics so we went with some gray floral that I’ve been
hoarding for a while. It was a pretty
awesome Hobby Lobby find and was perfect for this dress with some yellow solid
that I had picked up from Ozark Fabrics on Facebook.

As far as the fit, I found it to be true to RTW. Little Miss wears a size 6 RTW, and I made this dress in a size 6. It fit her perfectly! The bodice is slightly form fitting, but there
was still plenty of room for my ninja princess to wage war on the skeleton army
(i.e. her brother). The skirt was
definitely roomy enough that she could chase her brother around the yard and
play in it. Even a ninja princess needs
to be able to play, right?

I made my own buttons for the bodice using the button covers
that you can get a JoAnn’s or Hobby Lobby.
It’s really easy to do that with this pattern because you don’t sew
button holes. The pattern calls for
elastic loops so you can use pretty much any type of button you want.

All in all, we really do love our Bella around here, and I
see many more of these in our future! Now
for the best part! It’s going to be on
sale for a special release price at Jennifer’s shop from today through Sunday, 31 January! You
can get your copy of Bella for $5. After
that, it goes up to $7.95.

So just head to Snuggle My Baby Patterns or visit Jennifer’s
etsy shop! Also, Jennifer has a facebook
page where you can follow her happenings:

Shop Snuggle My Baby Patterns here at her webstore or here at her Etsy shop! Remember, the Bella Party or Play Dress is on sale for a limited time to celebrate the release of this amazingly versatile pattern!

If you want to skip on over to the Facebook group, you can find it here. Jennifer posts all of her happenings here so you won't miss out on new releases or special events!

Now, if you've read this far, then I really do appreciate your for sticking with me! Now head on over and pick up your copy of the Bella!